The names of those who do not share their Aadhaar number to link with the electoral identity card will not be removed from the voter list, according to Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju on Friday, December 16. Also mentioned was the voluntary nature of the exercise.
Regarding the connection between Aadhaar and voting records, he was responding to a query. From August 1 in all the states and UTs, the Election Commission will begin a scheme to collect Aadhaar numbers from current and potential voters on a voluntary basis.
However, the minister made it clear that “there is no provision for withdrawing the consent” to share Aadhaar details. Asked whether the names of the voters whose voter IDs are not linked with Aadhaar will be struck off from the voters’ list, he replied in the negative.
The minister informed Rajya Sabha on Thursday that more than 54 crores of the nearly 95 crore total voters have opted to link their Aadhaar details with the voter list.
He said linking of Aadhaar is “process driven” and “no targets have been given” for linking Aadhaar with election photo identity card.
Rijiju said the Unique Identification Authority of India (UlDAl), under the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 has made it compulsory for the centralized storage of all Aadhaar numbers in a different repository known as ‘Aadhaar Data Vault’.
The Election Commission strictly follows the guidelines prescribed by UIDAI and “does not” store the Aadhaar numbers in its database. The Aadhaar number is used only for authentication purposes and EC does not retrieve any personal information from the UIDAI Aadhaar database, he underlined.
